Dow, S&P see highest closes since last summer

NEW YORK – A surprisingly strong report on the housing market and the prospect of more cash for the International Monetary Fund to fight off a financial crisis powered stocks Wednesday to their highest close since last summer.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index closed above 1,300 for the first time since July 28, and the Dow Jones industrial average finished at its highest since July 25. The S&P is up 4 percent for the year, the Dow 3 percent.

Smaller stocks had the strongest gains, a sign that investors are becoming more comfortable taking on risk.

“We think things are setting up to be better than last year,” said Brad Sorensen, director of market research at Charles Schwab. “The worst-case scenario is off the table.”

The IMF said Wednesday it’s aiming to increase its financial firepower by around $500 billion so it can issue new loans.

The Washington-based institution said its staff estimates that countries around the world will need about $1 trillion in loans in the coming years. Most of the concerns center on the 17 nations that use the euro and their debt crisis. 

Goldman Sachs quarterly earnings down 58 percent

NEW YORK – Wall Street isn’t used to being underwhelmed by Goldman Sachs.

But even the powerhouse investment bank, which usually posts stellar results that leave its rivals in the dust, wasn’t immune to the rocky financial markets at the end of last year.

The bank’s net income for the last three months of the year fell 58 percent from a year earlier because of lower investment banking fees. The results beat Wall Street expectations but put Goldman in line with what it would consider ordinary banks.

In the last three months of the year, fear about the European debt crisis made the stock and bond markets volatile, and clients of all the major banks shied away from mergers and acquisitions and public offerings of stock.

Goldman’s investment banking business took in 43 percent less in the fourth quarter than a year earlier. 

Court: Public domain works may be re-copyrighted

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court upheld a law Wednesday giving U.S. copyright protection to paintings by Pablo Picasso, films of Alfred Hitchcock, music from Igor Stravinsky and millions of other works by foreign artists that had been freely available.

The justices said in a 6-2 decision Wednesday that Congress acted within its power when it extended protection to works that had been in the public domain. The law’s challengers complained that community orchestras, academics and others who rely on works that are available for free have effectively been priced out of performing “Peter and the Wolf” and other pieces that had been mainstays of their repertoires.

The case concerned a 1994 law that was intended to bring the U.S. into compliance with an international treaty on intellectual property.